I wonder about the rumour for limited multi-tasking.
What does that mean?

My guesses

Only allow 2 or 3 apps to multitask?

This is the only one that rings true to me. I think for multitasking to work for the average user of a phone with very finite battery a few things have to be set up.

First, Apple has to design a method for which background apps will run. I expect this to be similar to the way Push Notifications are turned on and off in Settings and then the apps that have the specific API are listed.

They also make the OS allow a select amount of RAM and cycles that the background apps can take so that it doesnt affect the foreground app (the most important app) or any other critical process, like the phone app that is always running.

This means the 2nd thing is for developers to use the Backgrounder API to allow you to turn your app on in the background. Why not all apps? Because the average person doesnt think about this stuff and shouldnt need to with a phone.

Example: Imagine someone non-technical leaving their crossword puzzle app running in the background all day because they dont want to lose their puzzle entries because they dont realize the app autosaves saves their entries. You may laugh because you know better but most people dont know how this tech works.

So once a developer adds the Backgrounder API to their app and caters hwo much system resources it can use you can then turn it on in Settings. When you press the Home Button you go back to the home screen but the app is still running. Theyll need a quick access method to your background apps. Addabox had a nice idea to flick the screen up to see a list of running apps and your notification history from any Home Screen. This sounds reasonable. If you are in an app that is running in the background and want to close it, not just leave it, holding hold the Home Button for 2 seconds could kill it.

I think this all requires a lot of trial and error, especially the end user access, to get it right. Apple took their sweet time with copy/paste but its perfect so I expect their solution to be perfect on this, too, not the endless 3rd world bus ride of Android where you can just keep piling on more apps until others gets squeezed out of the whole thing crashes from being overloaded.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I wonder about the rumour for limited multi-tasking.
What does that mean?

My guesses

Only allow 2 or 3 apps to multitask?

allow a "mini" app to run with a VERY small memory footprint, pulling up the main app when needed.

give an app 30 seconds to close. So when we exit an app it immediately goes to the home screen while the app takes its time to cleanly close up in the background. (after I make a move in chess it sometimes takes 30 seconds to send... I'd like to go to home page without aborting the send).

only multitask while plugged in

Sorry I don't know which thread had that rumour... hopefully it was this one...

Simply put a notification up on the screen whenever such and such an App is still running- like my CNN notifications whenever a disaster strikes,

How to make background apps mostly pointless and unfriendly for the average user...

I dont know the best method for making this work, but Backgrounder is not it. Do we really need our stocks app and Shazam and nearly every other kind of app running in the background? Of course not. Now, if they implement a way to offer Lock Screen Widgets that monitor stocks, now that would be useful, but I think having it update every x-many minutes via the PNS would be a much better use of resources than having it constantly vying for system and wireless resources.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I wonder about the rumour for limited multi-tasking.
What does that mean?

My guesses

Only allow 2 or 3 apps to multitask?

allow a "mini" app to run with a VERY small memory footprint, pulling up the main app when needed.

give an app 30 seconds to close. So when we exit an app it immediately goes to the home screen while the app takes its time to cleanly close up in the background. (after I make a move in chess it sometimes takes 30 seconds to send... I'd like to go to home page without aborting the send).

only multitask while plugged in

I kind of agree. I think Apple will try to deliver all of the benefits of multi-tasking without the penalties.

By penalties, I mean uncertain levels of resources for the foreground app. Ongoing drain of battery, CPU and memory from backgrounded applications, and user-confusion relating to forgotten background tasks.

The benefits of multi-tasking in a handheld are - instant switching between applications, and ongoing stuff happening in background.

Instant switching is achievable by suspending apps instead of quitting. Just let them sit there in memory - ready to resume. This would have no downside apart from the memory use. And if the system needed the memory for some new app. Then quit the app at that point. This lazy quitting would improve the user experience dramatically. You would be able to swipe between "running" applications. Hop in an out of games and so on. If you commonly use less than 10 apps. They'd all happily fit into RAM on the 3GS.

For ongoing background running, I think the idea of a micro-app (or application delegate task) is the way to go. A resource limited micro-app could sit and run in background controlled by a scheduler which would guarantee that all such backgrounded micro-app used no more than 5% of the available resources.

These micro-apps would be able to stream music, update notification data, perhaps redraw icons, and re-launch their parent application when needed. Such apps could play nicely with the background notification system. And this would solve the long whined-about "running Pandora in background" issue which is apparently the main reason to multi-task.!

In a handheld device, if Apple implemented both of these mechanisms, I can't see a case for "full-multitasking" at all.

The Inquirer became a parody of itself long ago, and it was never much to start with.

Actully that's not true. Mike magee was the original owner and they used to find out stuff weeks before it hit wall street. They were never even heard of here until PC buyers made the switch once intel did.

Actully that's not true. Mike magee was the original owner and they used to find out stuff weeks before it hit wall street. They were never even heard of here until PC buyers made the switch once intel did.

Actually, I think it is. I don't know how far you're going back, but I've been reading it off and on for about 10-12 years now. Even when I thought they were tackling the right issues, they were still mistaking archness for seriousness and credibility. Every time I've been sent back to reading one of their articles, I am reminded of this basic problem with the Enquirer's approach to everything.

Yawn. Unnecessary political commentary from... the west village. A paragon of neutrality. Pass.

The irony is that FOX "News" was being criticized for political commentary (being portrayed as news). If you're going to complain about unnecessary political commentary being thrown into every discussion... FOX "News" should be the first target for your criticism.

I know it's probably obvious, but most people haven't presented it this way.... IF (big IF) Apple can present the slate at $500 ....

Then purchasers can be presented with 2 choices

MacBook Pro - 15", 2.5Ghz, 250GB HD -$1700
OR both of the following:

22" iMac - 3GHz, 500GB HD - $1200

iSlate - 64GB - $500

Presented with that - it could be an interesting choice. The iMac is also a jump up in speed with faster supporting hardware.

I don't think Apple would do $500 for the iSlate - that's just $100 more than a 64GB iPod Touch, and even though the parts costs for bigger screen and battery aren't that much higher (according to cost breakdowns of Atom tablets), I think Apple doesn't make much on the iPod Touch while it makes more on the iPhone.

Of course Apple may be wanting to tie it to some subscriptions, and just $10/mth (clear!) boosts $240 to the slate. My best hope is they want to reinvent MobileMe and make it core to the experience (with online music streaming etc)... and will offer the tablet for $500 plus a $10/mth subscription to MobileMe for 2 years.

I'm pretty sure that the Tablet is for real and that it will have a Paint program and there is your tie in for the picture and words in Apple's invite.

As far as iLife goes, Apple has almost always released the newest iLife suite at this time of the year so it doesn't need to tie in with the Tablet per say but we might be surprised.

I think Apple is all but done with iDVD as it is moving it's strategy to the cloud. If this new Tablet thingy has enough power I don't see why it couldn't run a touch version of iLife and of course iWork. No reason you can't have a mobile GarageBand and iMovie and if the Tablet includes a video camera it could work. For sure iPhoto makes sense as one of the people here mentioned it displaying your photo's as it charges like a picture frame. Also a great way to show your friends and family your pics. Hopefully iWeb gets some big changes as it is not so great but I can see it to working on the Tablet. So everything but iDVD could have it's place and work fine.

The biggest question here really is the Tablet running a different version of Snow Leopard? Perhaps standard Snow Leopard only with touch? Or will it be running the new iPhone OS 4.0 and will that now be powerful enough to do all the things I am thinking this Tablet will be able to do? Or will it be a hybrid?

If this new Tablet thingy has enough power I don't see why it couldn't run a touch version of iLife and of course iWork. No reason you can't have a mobile GarageBand and iMovie and if the Tablet includes a video camera it could work. For sure iPhoto makes sense as one of the people here mentioned it displaying your photo's as it charges like a picture frame. Also a great way to show your friends and family your pics. Hopefully iWeb gets some big changes as it is not so great but I can see it to working on the Tablet. So everything but iDVD could have it's place and work fine.

I am not sure why you think this.

iMovie does not only need power. It needs lots of storage. Movies are bulky.

iPhoto is a shoebox to keep photos, so again, you need a big hard drive. But an app to view photographs will be a given.

Pages is going to be a lame duck without a keyboard.

Numbers needs a keyboard too.

None of Apple's iLife or iWork suite make a lot of sense on a tablet.
Touch interfaces are great stuff out of a computer. Not so good for putting stuff in.
I think this device is more likely to be a satellite for getting at shared content, not a productivity device for creating it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webtread

The biggest question here really is the Tablet running a different version of Snow Leopard?

iPhoto is a shoebox to keep photos, so again, you need a big hard drive. But an app to view photographs will be a given.

Current iPhoto is - but what if you could sync a small subset of photos to your tablet (just like the current iPhone sync) but still edit, crop, create albums, name faces, and re-sync back to the master library? I currently sync select albums AND all recent photos to my phone.

Quote:

iMovie does not only need power. It needs lots of storage. Movies are bulky.

Yes it does. If we're talking the typical DV, then it's about 14GB for an hour. HD cameras use less - about 8GB - but current iMovie converts that to Apple Intermediate Codec which is much larger. In any case it'd use a lot of space.

I don't think having a low-res tablet copy to do some off-line edits with then sync back the changes to the master would do the job either. Too many issues. Not ideal but it's possible I suppose.

It's not possible Apple would sync partial events from Mac to tablet is it?

Quote:

Pages is going to be a lame duck without a keyboard.
Numbers needs a keyboard too.

I could really do with a quick way of making notes when with a client. I often draw mind-maps of what they're saying, and make a box with a note of my own. The laptop doesn't do it so well on the fly, so there's potential in the slate even without a keyboard.

In general, I'd think that you create your documents in pages or keynote on the computer, and then you might make light edits from the slate. In particular, it lends itself to making notes on a document or circling things, like a student might do when reading a paper.

Your comment is probably one of the most offensive of anybody's so far. So because I watch Fox News, I no longer have a brain and I am all of those stupid stereotypes you rattled off?

I happen to be a very devout Christian. Yes, I am conservative. A couple of my wife's and my best friends are a gay couple two houses down. I play basketball every week with a group of guys from work every week, half of them black, and some of the best all-around guys I know. I can call a pile of crap just that when I see it, and some stuff on Fox News is just that. Guess what, the same can be said about CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, etc. Don't profile all of us just because of Rush's sometimes stupid comments. Please rethink your post and your state of mind, because while I respect anybody and everybody I come across, it is very hard to respect you based on comments like that, and I am sure you're better than that.

I respect what you've written and I know many decent people who watch FOX News, but I also know many doctors and nutritionists who eat at McDonald's.

I have some conservative views and some liberal views, but in no manner can you say FOXNews is in any way equivalent to C-SPAN or CNN. FOX News isn't bad because they lean right-wing, they are bad because they get great ratings by catering to four emotional/intellectual/spiritual frailties that humans indulge in: ignorance, fear, anger and arrogance (pride). That is their primary problem and that is something I would think any devout Christian would be concerned with.

It is impossible to discuss all of the facts regarding FOX News and the amount of damaging bias it imparts to a public that needs real reporting in order to make the best decisions in a democracy, but suffice it to say this:

If you are honest and if you believe MSNBC is just as biased as FOX News - AND you are willing to admit that FOX News is biased - THEN I would think you have the moral responsibility to watch equal amounts of MSNBC and FOX News to balance their opposing editorial judgements to make sure you are exposed to enough information to be able to see the bias in both.

If you do not do this, you are not being an honest devout Christian, you are merely doing what most people do - listen to people that you agree with whether or not they are right or wrong.

I'm happy that you like some black and gay people - would you sit down and watch Glen Beck with them? Why not? Discuss.

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

I kind of agree. I think Apple will try to deliver all of the benefits of multi-tasking without the penalties.

The benefits of multi-tasking in a handheld are - instant switching between applications, and ongoing stuff happening in background.

Instant switching is achievable by suspending apps instead of quitting. Just let them sit there in memory - ready to resume. If you commonly use less than 10 apps. They'd all happily fit into RAM on the 3GS.

How many simultaneous apps do people really need?!?! I can see the tablet needing this kind of power, maybe, but if you need more than 3 or 4 apps going on your iPhone, you need to slow down and save yourself that midlife heart attack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carniphage

For ongoing background running, I think the idea of a micro-app (or application delegate task) is the way to go.
These micro-apps would be able to stream music, update notification data, perhaps redraw icons, and re-launch their parent application when needed. Such apps could play nicely with the background notification system. And this would solve the long whined-about "running Pandora in background" issue which is apparently the main reason to multi-task.! In a handheld device, if Apple implemented both of these mechanisms, I can't see a case for "full-multitasking" at all.

Agreed. So you are saying most iPhone apps need to be widgets, not apps.

Seems simple enough.

C.[/QUOTE]

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

This is the only one that rings true to me. I think for multitasking to work for the average user of a phone with very finite battery a few things have to be set up.

First, Apple has to design a method for which background apps will run. I expect this to be similar to the way Push Notifications are turned on and off in Settings and then the apps that have the specific API are listed.

They also make the OS allow a select amount of RAM and cycles that the background apps can take so that it doesnt affect the foreground app (the most important app) or any other critical process, like the phone app that is always running.

This means the 2nd thing is for developers to use the Backgrounder API to allow you to turn your app on in the background. Why not all apps? Because the average person doesnt think about this stuff and shouldnt need to with a phone.

Example: Imagine someone non-technical leaving their crossword puzzle app running in the background all day because they dont want to lose their puzzle entries because they dont realize the app autosaves saves their entries. You may laugh because you know better but most people dont know how this tech works.

So once a developer adds the Backgrounder API to their app and caters hwo much system resources it can use you can then turn it on in Settings. When you press the Home Button you go back to the home screen but the app is still running. Theyll need a quick access method to your background apps. Addabox had a nice idea to flick the screen up to see a list of running apps and your notification history from any Home Screen. This sounds reasonable. If you are in an app that is running in the background and want to close it, not just leave it, holding hold the Home Button for 2 seconds could kill it.

I think this all requires a lot of trial and error, especially the end user access, to get it right. Apple took their sweet time with copy/paste but its perfect so I expect their solution to be perfect on this, too, not the endless 3rd world bus ride of Android where you can just keep piling on more apps until others gets squeezed out of the whole thing crashes from being overloaded.

How many simultaneous apps do people really need?!?! I can see the tablet needing this kind of power, maybe, but if you need more than 3 or 4 apps going on your iPhone, you need to slow down and save yourself that midlife heart attack.

Agreed. So you are saying most iPhone apps need to be widgets, not apps.

Seems simple enough.

C.

[/QUOTE]

Most already are in that sense. It does need to be extened to 3rd Party Devs as an API, however.

I respect what you've written and I know many decent people who watch FOX News, but I also know many doctors and nutritionists who eat at McDonald's.

I have some conservative views and some liberal views, but in no manner can you say FOXNews is in any way equivalent to C-SPAN or CNN. FOX News isn't bad because they lean right-wing, they are bad because they get great ratings by catering to four emotional/intellectual/spiritual frailties that humans indulge in: ignorance, fear, anger and arrogance (pride). That is their primary problem and that is something I would think any devout Christian would be concerned with.

It is impossible to discuss all of the facts regarding FOX News and the amount of damaging bias it imparts to a public that needs real reporting in order to make the best decisions in a democracy, but suffice it to say this:

If you are honest and if you believe MSNBC is just as biased as FOX News - AND you are willing to admit that FOX News is biased - THEN I would think you have the moral responsibility to watch equal amounts of MSNBC and FOX News to balance their opposing editorial judgements to make sure you are exposed to enough information to be able to see the bias in both.

If you do not do this, you are not being an honest devout Christian, you are merely doing what most people do - listen to people that you agree with whether or not they are right or wrong.

I'm happy that you like some black and gay people - would you sit down and watch Glen Beck with them? Why not? Discuss.

I think I'm center right, as I believe the country is, and I think that's the angle Fox reports the news from. I think commentator programs such as Beck and O'Reilly follows suit, however they are such a shock to some because it shakes their beliefs in how the world works. Up until this point there was no one on air with this point of view.

I hear again and again that Fox is "bad because they get great ratings by catering to four emotional/intellectual/spiritual frailties that humans indulge in" but offer nothing else to back it up. Do you consider it fear reporting because they provide additional information no other networks provide? Why is it a bad thing to show the Clower and Pivens strategy or Saul Alinsky tactics and compare that to events that are happening now? Is it "fear" reporting? You might label it that and by the definition of the word fear I might agree, I do get more fearful the more I learn. I think these are more of a history lesson than anything else.

The one thing that strikes me is no other newsgroup (or government agency) can discredit the reporting. The response to a story is usually nothing more than name calling. They're right right-wing, they're this, or they're that. To those that cry this I say prove it. Fox runs hundreds of news stories every day. Show where the facts in the NEWS STORIES are indeed wrong. When Fox starts having a history of misreporting facts half as bad as MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, I'll agree with the complaints of Fox.

To answer your question about Beck, that's a silly question why wouldn't someone watch him with black or gays? I have in the past, and know of several blacks especially, that love him.

Just say no to MacMall. They don't honor their promotions and won't respond to customer inquiries. There are better retailers out there.

im sad to hear you say this, youve been my favorite commenter on this site, i had you pegged for more of a thinking person. thank you for the spelling and grammar lesson though, and for informing me that ego's can not be implanted. also, the intellectualization which you just exhibited as an ego defense mechanism to counter my statements (without actually countering my statements) just reinforces my point. so thank you for that as well. to answer your questions: no, i do not believe the complainers are wearing tie dye shirts and are high on lsd; yes, 90% of the people in news are leftist; and no, im not twelve.

I know, the sad thing is that I'm sure you are not twelve.

90% of people in the news lean democrat, not "leftist" - and actually the number is 70%. Does that make them any less reliable to America, than the possibility that 70% of the military is republican or 80% of Wall Street is republican or that 70% of catholics are democrat?!?!? What do those percentages say to you?

And have you ever wondered why journalist might lean democrat? Have you thought for a moment longer than the pure emotional reaction time to your amygdala? Let alone the fact that many grew up during Watergate and Viet Nam and saw the dishonesty and hubris of the Republican party at the time, there are some real reasons for their political leanings.

Have you ever wondered why people who travel a great deal or people with university degrees that require critical thinking skills also tend to lean liberal? It isn't about elitism, it is about experiencing the world outside the beltway and the suburbs. It is about forcing one's beliefs to be critically questioned by others from all sides. It is about repeatedly being in situations in which viewing the world in black and white, just doesn't cut it.

Some journalists get lazy and live in their own echochamber and they lose their critical thinking skills and find comfort in a narrow set of views ... like most people eventually. That is why people tend to get more conservative as they grow older. However most news agencies migrate these folks to commentary roles, not news roles.

FOX News does not do that. Many pro-Fox folks on this board pick at one or two contributing commentators on CNN and PBS as if that is the same as FOX. It isn't. And it isn't intellectually honest to say it. Honesty doesn't come from patriotism it comes from experience and often from a diverse and liberal education ... and I don't mean liberal in the current political sense, I mean liberal in the classic way of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Rousseau and others whom both Dems and Repubs claim as patron saints.

Newt, Rove, Huckabee and now Sarah Palin are on FOX more than any Dems have been even on MSNBC. You might as well have the Republican national committee have their own 1 hour variety show opposite Leno! And Hannity and company have the hubris to say that they are conservative, not republicans ... yeah, take your tongue out of Palin's ear before you say that.

So rather than be snarky and telling other people that they are not a "thinking person" in your mind. Just think things through yourself. There are reasons why people have the beliefs they do. There are reasons why conservatives tend to be the ones with guns shooting people in churches and the ones shooting doctors and the ones shooting people in the Holocaust Museum and the ones putting tons of explosives in Rider trucks in Oklahoma City. While liberals tend to warn about global warming and whine about Wall Street cheaters and moan about health care and occasionally throw red paint at ladies in fur coats.

The difference is that one group of radicals is dangerous and the other is just annoying.

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

I think I'm center right, as I believe the country is, and I think that's the angle Fox reports the news from. I think commentator programs such as Beck and O'Reilly follows suit, however they are such a shock to some because it shakes their beliefs in how the world works. Up until this point there was no one on air with this point of view.

I hear again and again that Fox is "bad because they get great ratings by catering to four emotional/intellectual/spiritual frailties that humans indulge in" but offer nothing else to back it up. Do you consider it fear reporting because they provide additional information no other networks provide? Why is it a bad thing to show the Clower and Pivens strategy or Saul Alinsky tactics and compare that to events that are happening now? Is it "fear" reporting? You might label it that and by the definition of the word fear I might agree, I do get more fearful the more I learn. I think these are more of a history lesson than anything else.

The one thing that strikes me is no other newsgroup (or government agency) can discredit the reporting. The response to a story is usually nothing more than name calling. They're right right-wing, they're this, or they're that. To those that cry this I say prove it. Fox runs hundreds of news stories every day. Show where the facts in the NEWS STORIES are indeed wrong. When Fox starts having a history of misreporting facts half as bad as MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, I'll agree with the complaints of Fox.

To answer your question about Beck, that's a silly question why wouldn't someone watch him with black or gays? I have in the past, and know of several blacks especially, that love him.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

But here is what I think. The country is not center-right, it is center-center - by definition. It is "center-right" when it comes to low taxes, gun ownership, and national defense, even though that is mostly marketing since there are more ex-military in congress who are Democrats, than Republicans. But the country is center-left when it comes to the environment, progressive tax structures, social security and distrust of banks and big business. Both sides are equally distrustful of government - just different parts of the government. And the country is pretty split down the middle when it comes to the hot button issues like abortion, immigration and gay marriage.

The Republican apologists at every opportunity on TV will always say that they country is center-right. It is a talking point, like saying Democrats are weak on defense or Republicans are in the pocket of big business. Both are strong on defense and both are in the pocket of big business - at least at the big party organizational level.

As for FOX News and the use of fear/anger/ignorance/arrogance in reporting, I have plenty of facts to back that up, but I need to stop making such huge posts on this thread. But here is what I mean:
1. The now out of date, but still relevant 2007 Pew study that surveyed Americans on basic knowledge which showed FOX News watchers near the bottom.http://people-press.org/report/319/p...on-revolutions)
2. As I said, I like that FOX is there to report things other news organizations do not report. I watch FOX News occasionally for that very reason. But PBS and C-SPAN and MSNBC also do that. And I also watch PBS and C-Span for those same reasons. The question is, do you? Does the average FOX News watcher watch PBS?
3. It is "arrogance" reporting when FOX wraps itself in the American flag every chance it gets.
4. It is biased reporting when news shows, not just Hannity and Beck, always have 3 or 4 conservatives on a panel with 1 or 2 liberals - and always the "liberals" are actually centrists like Mara Liason and Juan Williams or they are liberals that no one has ever heard of.
5. It is "ignorance" reporting ... well just watch FOX and Friends for 5 minutes ... you get the idea. Also Beck spends so much time deriding intellectuals and people with higher education, it makes you wonder what he is afraid of.
6. It is "fear" reporting when a Nigerian kid with explosives in his underwear is reported as Obama's "problems with national security", while the shoe bomber was never a problem with Bush's national security.
7. It is "anger" reporting when tea parties are supported and promoted by FOX News as if they were happening on every street corner and how many times was Obama's birth certificate questioned.

As for examples of misreporting ... wow, just Google some of it starting with the uncritical reporting of Bush's "evidence" for Saddam's WMD's. You might not like Olbermann on MSNBC, but he and Rachel Maddhow do take the time to show mistakes on FOX almost every night. I watch FOX for the same reason - to find errors in MSNBC's reporting. You just have to be willing to watch people you don't agree with, show errors with the people you do agree with and it works both ways.

None of this will change your mind of course, but I just want you to know that there are real, objective reasons why people see an irritating and dangerous bias in FOX News political reporting (not other reporting). You have to be a real news geek and watch a lot of different broadcasts to see it however and you might not have the time for it, like I have had.

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

The bottom line is that nobody watches cable news from any outlet to become better informed. At best they watch it to be entertained; at worst to have their prejudices confirmed. Fox may have perfected this cynical formula, but it's a deep barrel, and each and every cable outlet lives so near the bottom of it that trying to distinguish one from the other is a nearly pointless exercise.

The bottom line is that nobody watches cable news from any outlet to become better informed. At best they watch it to be entertained; at worst to have their prejudices confirmed. Fox may have perfected this cynical formula, but it's a deep barrel, and each and every cable outlet lives so near the bottom of it that trying to distinguish one from the other is a nearly pointless exercise.

Except for C-SPAN, I somewhat agree. My point is network news and CNN (except for disaster reporting) are lazy and bland and targeted to the least common denominator. MSNBC and FOX News are targeted to the most uncommon, polarizing denominators.

Yet not all cable news shows can be painted with the same brush. MSNBC has Pat Buchanan as a regular commentator. Pat Buchanan! A past Republican party candidate and strongly and honestly conservative in almost every way. Does FOX News have anyone like that to speak for the liberals?!?!?! No, that would be like them getting Walter Mondale or John Kerry in studio and giving them plenty of air time. Not going to happen

So cable news has issues, but they none are quite as biased and quite as dependent upon creating "the other" as FOX.

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

Except for C-SPAN, I somewhat agree. My point is network news and CNN (except for disaster reporting) are lazy and bland and targeted to the least common denominator. MSNBC and FOX News are targeted to the most uncommon, polarizing denominators.

Yet not all cable news shows can be painted with the same brush. MSNBC has Pat Buchanan as a regular commentator. Pat Buchanan! A past Republican party candidate and strongly and honestly conservative in almost every way. Does FOX News have anyone like that to speak for the liberals?!?!?! No, that would be like them getting Walter Mondale or John Kerry in studio and giving them plenty of air time. Not going to happen

So cable news has issues, but they none are quite as biased and quite as dependent upon creating "the other" as FOX.

I don't argue the point, I simply refuse to watch any of them by choice. Whenever I'm forced to see any of these "news" outlets I am horrified by what passes for information. Deliberate bias, laziness, sensationalism, or what other explanation is offered hardly matters -- they collectively stink to high heaven.

90% of people in the news lean democrat, not "leftist" - and actually the number is 70%. Does that make them any less reliable to America, than the possibility that 70% of the military is republican or 80% of Wall Street is republican or that 70% of catholics are democrat?!?!? What do those percentages say to you?

And have you ever wondered why journalist might lean democrat? Have you thought for a moment longer than the pure emotional reaction time to your amygdala? Let alone the fact that many grew up during Watergate and Viet Nam and saw the dishonesty and hubris of the Republican party at the time, there are some real reasons for their political leanings.

FOX News does not do that. Many pro-Fox folks on this board pick at one or two contributing commentators on CNN and PBS as if that is the same as FOX. It isn't. And it isn't intellectually honest to say it. Honesty doesn't come from patriotism it comes from experience and often from a diverse and liberal education ... and I don't mean liberal in the current political sense, I mean liberal in the classic way of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Rousseau and others whom both Dems and Repubs claim as patron saints.

Newt, Rove, Huckabee and now Sarah Palin are on FOX more than any Dems have been even on MSNBC. You might as well have the Republican national committee have their own 1 hour variety show opposite Leno! And Hannity and company have the hubris to say that they are conservative, not republicans ... yeah, take your tongue out of Palin's ear before you say that.

So rather than be snarky and telling other people that they are not a "thinking person" in your mind. Just think things through yourself. There are reasons why people have the beliefs they do. There are reasons why conservatives tend to be the ones with guns shooting people in churches and the ones shooting doctors and the ones shooting people in the Holocaust Museum and the ones putting tons of explosives in Rider trucks in Oklahoma City. While liberals tend to warn about global warming and whine about Wall Street cheaters and moan about health care and occasionally throw red paint at ladies in fur coats.

The difference is that one group of radicals is dangerous and the other is just annoying.

Whoa! I went to a tech site and found a political debate about the nature of the country. won't delve into all, but the figure is 90%+ of reporters voting democratic (multiple surveys over a number of years), and no, I don't think they can entirely put that aside in their reporting. none of us can.

also, all the big j schools are liberal through and through and it's no surprise they turn out dewey-eyed grads who've spent 4-6 years on the Kool Aid diet.

as for Fox News, you're peddling more "non sense." Fox's evening lineup is filled with conservative hosts and its hard new segments are, if only in their selection, somewhat shaded right, at least compared to the other nets, while MSNBC's prime-timers are all liberal to ultra-liberal. however, conservative guests on MSNBC are rarer than hen's teeth, while all the Fox evening shows have liberal guests (if not a majority) who are allowed to make their case. CNN pretends to be the middle ground, but the whiff of that 90% is clear to any nuanced news palette.

and immediately after you tell people not to be snarky, you next characterize conservatism itself as the cause of mad bombers, doctor killers, church shooters and such. while the worst leftist thinking leads to is red paint on fur coats? gee, that's not the way I see tree spikers (who cause serious injury or death to innocent timber workers), breaking into labs and destroying millions in research to "liberate" animals who will quicky die when tossed into the world, all those riots wherever the G8 gathers, nor since you brought up old history (McVeigh), the Weathermen. so I don't buy the "their kooks are worse than our kooks angle." plenty of kooks all across the board.

though, if Scott Brown's a mad bomber (or in imminent danger of becoming one from inhaling conservative precepts), I guess that makes President Obama an anarchist or anarchist-candidate by your own logic.

and yes, you are in your own lack of being as "balanced" as you think you are, dangerous, and certainly, for sure, annoying.

and having read only your post, I leave this debate for more tidbits of upcoming wares, soft and hard.